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RE: Cambridge Audio Dacmagic vs. Dacmagic 100

Posted by Cambridge Audio (M) on August 17, 2012 at 10:06:39

In Reply to: Cambridge Audio Dacmagic vs. Dacmagic 100 posted by Mcmann57 on August 13, 2012 at 09:12:00:

Hello McMann57,

The original DacMagic is essentially a 740C DAC board with a USB input and balanced outputs. All inputs save the USB are 96kHz capable. When we received the feedback from customers about what they wanted to see from future iterations, there was a fairly clear division. Many users wanted more features- headphone and volume chief among them. Others felt they weren't using many of the features like balanced outputs or the digital loopthrough and wanted a simpler and more cost effective design.

As such DacMagic Plus is the "true" successor to the DacMagic. It has a pair of Wolfson WM8740's mated to our bespoke upsampling board which makes use of the ATF system developed for the 840C. We've fitted async USB, a headphone socket and the whole shebang can also be used as a digital preamp.

The DacMagic 100 is the simpler DAC. Still capable of 192kHz operation, it uses a single Wolfson WM8742 that upsamples internally. No XLR's, headphone socket, digital output or volume make it considerably smaller and less expensive than the DacMagic Plus.

Is it better than the original DacMagic? If you have XLR's in your system and USB isn't the main source, I would give it to the DacMagic at a nod. With USB and RCA (and not to mention if you have a genuinely significant number of 192kHz files), the 100 probably has the upper hand. Some listeners (and I'm one of them) do find that the simpler DacMagic 100 can sound more "fun" than the very, very accurate DacMagic and DacMagic Plus and I know of people that have chosen the "little" DAC in preference over the "big" one. Others of course, prefer the sound of the ATF upsampling.

I hope this helps
Ed Selley
Cambridge Audio

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